Last week Hillary Clinton decided that since her lies about her use of a private email server, a device devoid of physical or cyber security, to send Top Secret information were being laughed at by virtually everyone, it was time to trot out the next best excuse: blame others.

Hillary Clinton told the FBI that her predecessor Colin Powell recommended that she use a private email account during her tenure as Secretary of State, according to a new report.

The New York Times reported on the revelation Thursday, based on notes from Clinton’s interview with the FBI about her server that were delivered to Congress this week, and on a preview of a book about Bill Clinton’s post-presidential years.

The notes from the FBI’s interview with Clinton, conducted during its probe of the issue, reveal that she told investigators that Powell had advised her to use a private account.

Additionally, an excerpt from journalist Joe Conason’s upcoming book on Bill Clinton, “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” provides more detail.

In the book, Conason recounts a scene at a dinner party in 2009 — attended by other former Secretaries of State, including host Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger, in addition to Powell — where they each offered Clinton guidance and advice as she prepared to take the reins of the State Department.

According to Conason’s book, it was at this dinner that Powell told Clinton to use a personal email account.

As the Times reports, Conason wrote, “Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat. Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”

On its merits, assuming its veracity which is a stretch in a book written by Clinton fellatisto, Joe Conason, based on interviewing reflexive liar Bill Clinton, this is a weak and pathetic excuse. Colin Powell stepped down as Secretary of State shortly after George Bush began his second term. The email environment in personal life, business, and government had changed markedly between Powell’s tenure and the beginning of Clinton’s. Plus, in April 2009, the State Department issued regulations, which Clinton ignored (laws are for little people), that forbade the use of private email accounts for government business. What makes this even more specious it that Clinton a) didn’t have to take the alleged advice and b) she continued using the private server she’d used during her stillborn primary campaign. Even Conason says:

According to Conason’s retelling, Clinton replied that she had already decided to continue using the private server in her home she had relied on during her 2008 presidential bid.

Plus, Clinton routinely sent messages that were at least classified For Official Use Only and Confidential and she clearly instructed aids to strip classification data from classified material before sending it.

Like I said, IF the story is true it is meaningless. But, like virtually anything else anyone named Clinton has to say, this story seems to be low in truthiness.

Colin Powell has broken his silence about his alleged involvement in the Hillary Clinton email scandal, saying her team is falsely trying to blame him.

When asked by the FBI about her email use at the State Department, Clinton reportedly told investigators that former Secretary of State Powell had advised her to use a personal email account at a private dinner.

But Powell, who had said last week in a statement that he had no recollection of the conversation, told Page Six at Saturday’s Apollo in the Hamptons event, “The truth is she was using it (her personal email) for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did [during my term as Secretary of State].

“Her people have been trying to pin it on me.”

When asked why Clinton’s team were attempting to blame him, he responded, “Why do you think?”

Despite appearing angered by the situation, he added, “It doesn’t bother me. It’s okay, I’m free.”

I’m not a big Colin Powell fan, but when it comes to either believing Clinton (who has a lot at stake in shifting blame) or Powell (who has nothing to lose even if the story is correct) this is a no-brainer.